1. Field
The present invention relates to a cleaner. More particularly, the present invention relates to a robot cleaner system having a docking station used to remove dust by sucking the dust collected in a robot cleaner.
2. Description of the Related Art
A cleaner is an appliance that cleans a room by removing impurities from the room. In general, a vacuum cleaner that sucks impurities using suction force of a vacuum section is mainly used. Recently, a robot cleaner, which detects and removes impurities from a floor while moving along the floor according to an automatic traveling function, has been developed.
The robot cleaner constitutes a robot cleaner system together with a docking station, which is located in a predetermined place of a room to electrically charge the robot cleaner or to remove dust collected in the robot cleaner.
Such a robot cleaner system is disclosed in U.S. Published Application No. 2005-0150519. The robot cleaner system includes a robot cleaner and a docking station having a suction unit to suck dust. A suction port is formed at a lower portion of the robot cleaner to suck dust and a brush is rotatably installed in the suction port to brush dust from a floor. The docking station is provided with a support having an inclined surface to allow the robot cleaner to move onto the docking station. A suction port is formed at one side of the inclined surface to suck dust from the robot cleaner. Thus, when the robot cleaner reaches a docking position by moving along the inclined surface, the suction port of the robot cleaner faces the suction port of the docking station. Then, the suction unit operates to collect dust stored in the robot cleaner into the docking station.
However, according to the above robot cleaner system, the robot cleaner docks with the docking station after the robot cleaner has been placed on the inclined surface of the docking station having a predetermined height. Therefore, the docking operation of the robot cleaner is not easy. Thus, a complex structure is necessary to precisely guide the robot cleaner onto the docking position.
In addition, the structure of the support installed in the docking station is inadvantageous because the support interferes with the moving function of the docking station, so the docking station cannot be separately used as a manual cleaner.
In addition, since the above robot cleaner system sucks dust in a state in which the suction port of the robot cleaner faces the suction port of the docking station, a sealing state between the suction ports deteriorates, so that suction force of the suction unit is greatly wasted or dust being moved into the docking station may be dropped onto the floor of the room.